The heat is on

The anime for the Japanese season is hot as the sun, but why turn down the heat, join us as we look at current anime news, a yummy recipe and listen to some sugoi anime tunes. First let’s look at the current season.

The summer season started off with many great new anime series, and also continued some of the anime anime series from the spring season. Without giving away too much spoilers here is the rundown to what happened in Boruto – Naruto Next Generations. The anime started its first 13 episodes off feeling like a mystery. On the one side we have the ‘shadow’ that brings its victims worst character traits out and steals chakra. Boruto and his friends chased the mystery of these happenings all over the town. In Episode 13, while Naruto, Shikamaru and Kakashi discover the culprit, Baruto and Mitsuki also get close to the origin of this shadowy creature. In episode 14 we get to see Boruto, Mitsuki and the class rep face certain ‘demons’ from the past war.

If you are into Ravenloft’s Curse of Strahd orBram Stoker’s Dracula, then the animated series Castlevania from Netflix might just ‘bite’ your interests. It is bloody, gory and have just the right amount of fangs to crawl under any vampire horror enthusiast’s skin. As in the Castlevania games, the series is based on, it is up to a Belmont, this time Trevor Belmont, to take up the whip to lash out against Dracula, the dark lord and his minions. If you loved Vampire Hunter D and Hellsing Ultimate, this series is a must-watch.

If you are in the mood for something light to nibble on, with just the right side dish of humour served with fantasy elements then the anime Isekai Shokudou is just the anime ‘dish’ for you, simmered to the perfect heat. It is about a restaurant somewhere in Tokyo that specializes in Western cuisine, Mondays to Fridays. On Saturdays, however, it is closed to the public but then it is when a dimensional door opens and beast men, Lizard men, sword men, wizards, shape shifting dragons, treasure hunters and other fantasy world surprises go to the restaurant ‘Western Restaurant Nekoya’ to eat from its exquisite menu. (There is even a parfait that can cure illness!) Beware, anime fanatiks, watching this anime will leave you hungry for food and a next episode. Itadakimasu.

Black Clover

Black Clover

The manga and anime scene is abuzz since the popular manga; Black Clover is getting an anime adaptation and is scheduled for October this year to premiere! Black Clover has been serialized in SHONEN JUMP since February 2015 and is one of the most successful new manga series these past two years. It is said that the manga is compared to legendary franchises such as One Piece and Fairy Tail and has an almost ‘fanatikal’ fan base.

Black Clover is being produced by Studio Pierrot, the same studio that produced Naruto, and the staff includes director Tatsuya Yoshihara (Monster Musume), Kazuyuki Fudeyasu (Hajime No Ippo) on composition, Itsuko Takeda (Blue Drop) on character design, Kosei Takahashi (Monster Hunter Stories RIDE ON) as prop designer, Aiko Shinohara (Fairy Tail) is working on color design and Minako Seki (Kingdom) on musical composition. The anime’s cast will include Shun Horie, Soma Saito, Kaito Ishikawa, Yutaka Aoyama and Ai Kavano.

The anime tells the tale of Asta and Yuno, raised together at the same orphanage in Clover Kingdom. It is a world where everyone has magical powers, the exception is Asta who has none but his friend Yuno is a magical prodigy. The story follows them both trying to become the Wizard King. Sounds familiar, doesn’t is? *wink, wink*

Bleach Live-Action

Bleach Live-Action

Remember the anime Bleach? It started off with a boy named Ichigo being able to see ghosts and interacting with them. That is until a foul creature, a Hollow attacked him, being drawn to the boy’s spiritual energy. A Shinigami (Death God) named Rukia runs to his aid to save him and thus seals his fate to become one of the most powerful and loved Death God ever seen in anime. The anime ended but the manga went well beyond the anime’s story-line.

The manga ended and soon thereafter, a life-action adaptation of Tite Kubo’s Bleach manga was announced. At the time this article is written, only Sota Fukushi (Kamen Rider Fourze) has been announced as cast member. He will play the protagonist Ichigo Kurosaki. It has been promised that soon the actress playing Rukia Kuchiki will be announced. Shinsuke Sato (GANTZ) is the director of the movie, which is shot in the suburbs of the Kanto region (Which included Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa). The story of the movie is based on the ‘Substitute Shinigami’ arc, which featured in the manga’s first 8 volumes. The movie is due to be released round this time in 2018

A 20-second trailer of the movie has been released during the month, showing tidbits of what is to come. There is not enough footage of the movie to find out how it may be received but Shinsuke Sato looks dashing posing with Ichigo’ Zanpakuto at the end of the trailer.

Bleach also has its own GPS-based mobile game in Japan that works a bit like Pokémon Go. In the game, Bleach: Paradise Lost players protect the city from Hollows in the real world. The game will be free-to-play and will be released later this year. Just imagine when this goes worldwide; it will give us all a chance to channel our inner Shinigami.

Fairy Tail

Fairy Tail

It is a good news/ Bad News situation. Hiro Mashima’s Fairy Tail manga is ending soon and its final Volume, Volume 63 is due to be released for sale in November.

Fairy Tail fans followed the many characters of the Fairy Tail mages guild through space and time, to parallel worlds and dark and damp dungeons. We have seen Lucy grow into a powerful celestial wizard and Natsu into a powerful dragon slayer. We have laughed at Natsu’s antics, his motion sickness and felt his heart of passion burning for his friends.

But here comes a little good news. It is not the end yet. Fairy Tail author announced that the anime is returning in 2018 for a final season. The last anime season was Fairy Tail Zero back in 2016, which acted as a prequel to the rest of the anime, dealing with the Fairy Tail Guild’s founding members and their stories. But still, the anime and manga will be gone soon, or will it. Nothing stays dead in anime. We have seen the return of old series like Black Jack (Young Black Jack) and D.Gray-man (D.Gray-man Hallow). Let’s stay hoping that more will come

FLCL

Interesting tidbits from the realms of Anime

Spread the Word

Have you learned your numbers? Knowing how to count in any language is very helpful. If you are in Japan and want to ask where the platform for train 26 is, then knowing that 26 is ‘nijuuroku’ in Japanese can help a lot.

First let’s discus our Japanese word for the month. Often when learning to count in Japanese, and browsing on the net they give you one to ten in Japanese. The number ‘zero’ or ‘null’ gets neglected. So our word for the month is rei and ‘rei’ means ‘Zero’. Now here is zero to nine in Japanese. Please note that 4 have two ways to say it.

9 or Kyuu / Ku

Traditional Japanese recipe

This month’s recipe dish became a traditional Japanese dish thanks to Western influences, just like pap became a tradition in Africa since maize (mielies) were discovered in the Americas. Sometimes tradition is formed from meeting other cultures. Chocolate as well as tomatoes are also evidence about how ingredients from one continent can richly influence another’s traditional cuisine. Our dish thus for this month are traditional Japanese pancakes.

If you have ever watched the anime Cardcaptor Sakura you may remember Episode 3 where Sakura caught the Watery Clow Card. In the episode there some pancake eating as well and over the season pancakes feature a few times. You get different variations of pancakes like normal pancakes and soufflé pancakes; The Japanese soufflé pancakes are incredibly fluffy, airy and delicious. It is like eating sweet fluffy clouds. It can be great for breakfast but more traditionally in Japan it is treated as a dessert. Some Japanese use a secret ingredient that may sound strange to some, but it adds to the super fluffiness of the dish – mayonnaise! Don’t worry, if the dish is done right you will not taste the mayo at all, and just enjoy the food’s sweetness and fluffiness.

Firstly you ‘divorce’ the eggs by separating the egg yolk and the egg whites into two different bowls. You then mix the yogurt, icing sugar, and mayonnaise to the yolk and mix them together well. Sift your flour and baking powder into the yolk mixture and mix well, now add lemon to the egg whites and beat them until they are foamy and not runny anymore. Fold your egg whites into the yolk and the flour batter (don’t dare to over mix, just fold it in.) Drop a spatula spoonful of the batter into a non-stick frying pan or sandwich maker and cook it for 2 minutes. Flip them over after 2 minutes, then cook for a further 2 minutes or until both sides are browned. Serve with any syrup and toppings you like.

Eikichi Onizuka

Birthday of the month

Our birthday for the month is none other than Eikichi Onizuka, the protagonist of the anime Great Teacher Onizuka. His birthday is on August 3, making him a Leo. It is a manga and anime aimed at adults and teenagers. 22-year old Eikichi Onizuka is an eccentric, mischievous and secretly perverted teacher. He contradicts and challenges every rule and law any respectable school abides by. He uses genius and unconventional ways to gets his message across to people he tries to help. In the anime series Great Teacher Onizuka (or GTO to his fan base), he is the Homeroom teacher of class 3-4 at Seirin Academy. He teaches Social Studies (Sociology) but his real teachings go beyond that; teaching his students about the reality of life.

Onizuka used to be the leader of the Oni-Baku biker gang. He is still respected, revered and feared by his formal biker buddies. He is still riding a bike in the series as we always see him riding his Kawasaki 750 Road Star z2, on which he sometimes even carry a student. He miraculously solves his students’ problems and has even jumped off the school’s rooftop in order to save a student. He also works hard with perseverance and determination to earn a student’s friendship.

Onizuka also had a few live action movies and a live action series GTO Taiwan. GTO Taiwan is a continuance on the stories from the Manga and anime. Ex-gangster-turned-teacher Onizuka has been invited to a Taiwanese high school to be a one-week teaching assistant… and those of us that knows Onizuka knows that the Taiwanese students are in for some interesting times…

AMV of The Month

We bring you a One Piece AMV and some One Piece news. But first, let us applaud One Piece, because it is turning 800, yes 800 episodes! It has been a journey like none other watching Luffy and his wacky yet super sugoi crew of pirates goes from island to island, getting stronger. We all root for Monkey D. Luffy to become that Pirate King and we all hope he finds the fabled treasure named One Piece.

As for the news, some may like it some not. It seems that there will be a Hollywood live-action One Piece TV series. Some of you may be cringing in your seats reading this, remembering the Dragonball Evolution live-action that disappointed almost every one in the anime scene. Will Hollywood rock the boat again? And this series will be expensive giving that every character and their mother in the anime boast with special abilities, from Luffy’s Mr.Fantastic-like rubber abilities to Tony Tony Chopper’s abilities to shape change. Prison Break’s Marty Adelstein will be in charge of the project.

Our AMV of the month is State of Mine’s song Rise. Patrick Hawkins and Stuart Maxwell from New Zealand founded State of Mine in 2002. Their albums include Take Control (2006), Faster Than Light (2009) and Eat the Rich (2014)

Have you ever listened to anime podcasts? Try out Anime Addicts Anonymous. It was formed in 2009 by two college friends, Mitsugi and Chaika and they promise to make your anime, hentai and hobby addiction worst.

Tokyo Ghoul

August Anime Challenge

Everybody love our monthly anime challenges and if you look on our FB page you will see the challenge updated every week. The August challenge will be Tokyo Ghoul. Watch as bookworm Kaneki Ken gets pulled into the dark part of the world as he discover Ghouls are real when he goes out on a date with a girl who happens to think of him as food. An accident happens and she is killed and the doctors in a hurry to save Kaneki’s life, transplant parts of her body into his… Then Kaneki starts to get strange cravings… for human flesh… Last months challenge was Ore Monogatari, a love story. We hope you enjoyed the challenge.

Anime Day!

Please note that our next anime meetup will be a food challenge. Please keep an eye on Meetup.com and Facebook for more details.